Webberville man heads to trial on home invasion charge

A Webberville man will head to trial in Livingston County Circuit Court on charges alleging he broke into the home of a woman he dated and was helping move.

Joshua Jaid Rodgers, 25, was charged with assault with intent to commit sexual penetration and assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder, but those charges were dismissed prior to Tuesday’s probable-cause hearing. He also was charged with assault by strangulation, but the prosecution did not seek to bind him over on that charge following testimony from the complainant, who said Rodgers did not choke her.

Rodgers, whose bond was lowered from $400,000 to $100,000, also is charged with interfering with electronic communications, interfering with a crime report, operating a vehicle while intoxicated and second-offense domestic violence. No new court dates were immediately available.

The complainant, Jessica Stowers, testified that she invited Rodgers, who she dated “for close to a year,” to her then Mason Road home to help her move July 13. She said they both drank alcohol and that later in the evening Rodgers became upset with her response to a question.

Stowers testified that Rodgers threw a table as he left the home and got into his Ford Focus. She said he returned to the home and she assumed he used the cloth material wrapped around his hand to break in a backdoor window. She said he also kicked in the front door.

Stowers said she tried to call police, but Rodgers took her phone. She said he held her down while yelling at her.

“When he had me against the wall, he kept slapping me (and asking), ‘Are you listening to me?’ ” Stowers testified.

Assistant Prosecutor Shawn Ryan asked Stowers if Rodgers choked her as she told police, but Rodgers replied that “choked is not the word I should have used.”

“His hand was on my chest,” Stowers said, noting that it was near her throat as he held her down, but he did not choke her. On cross-examination, she explained: “He did not squeeze to strangle me. He was using his hand to keep me in position while he was talking to me.”

Stowers said she ran to a neighbor’s home after Rodgers left a second time.

The neighbor testified that Stowers’ knocking on his door woke him up in the early morning of July 14 and that she was “in hysterics, unable to talk.” The neighbor said when Stowers calmed down she told him that a friend helped her move furniture, left, returned, kicked in the door, smashed her phone, choked her and was “tossing her around.”

On cross-examination, defense attorney James Metz questioned whether Stowers invited Rodgers to her home for “an intimate” evening, but she balked at the use of the word intimate. Stowers said she and Rodgers were hanging out, but the evening was “not planned out to anything specific.”

Ryan objected to the line of questioning, but the judge allowed it.

At the end of testimony, Metz argued not to send the home invasion charge to Circuit Court because Stowers testified that she expected Rodgers to return to the home, but retired Judge A. John Pikkarainen disagreed, saying the victim testified that she had locked her door, which changed her initial acceptance of him in her home.

In a separate case, Rodgers was sentenced to 60 days in the Livingston County Jail for violating probation. The judge revoked a Spousal Abuse Act designation on the case which meant it was a non-public case.